Stop saying Zohran Mamdani is anti-Semitic, Debra Messing etc.!

I've survived violent anti-Semitism; this isn't just dumb, it's insulting.

“Will & Grace” star Debra Messing is having a meltdown about New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, referring to the anti-Zionist and Muslim Democrat as a “jihadist.” I hate to dunk on Messing, who supported my work at Salon when I covered the Hamilton Electors, but as a proud Jew who shares Messing’s New York roots, I must protest.

How New York am I? In 1997, I was nearly murdered by an anti-Semitic mob in upstate New York (Sullivan County, to be exact). They chanted “Drown the Jew!” as they held my head under water.

How Jewish am I? From 2015 to 2016, I was harassed for criticizing then-presidential candidate Donald Trump by Andrew Anglin, arguably America’s most prominent neo-Nazi at the time (he was deplatformed in 2017 for harassing victims of the Charlottesville riots). My sin: I pointed out that Trump used anti-Semitic rhetoric in claiming all Jews are good with money and support Zionists.

I do not cite these incidents to claim to be an infallible authority on anti-Semitism. Hell, when I first saw “The Passion of the Christ” in 2004, I was so fascinated by the attempts at historical authenticity (Aramaic dialogue! Structured like medieval passion plays!) that I totally missed the blatant Jew-hatred. Yet despite my past mistakes, I still believe the charge “anti-Semite” should be used with a tendency to err on the side of caution. Because people can and should be cancelled for trafficking in one of history’s oldest bigotries, we should only state as fact that they hate Jews if the evidence of this hatred is beyond a reasonable doubt.

This is not the case for Mamdani. I wish this fact had been made clear to the 63 percent of New York City Jews who voted for Mamdani’s chief opponent in the 2025 mayoral election, the centrist (and loathsome) Andrew Cuomo, best known (per right-wing Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa) for “slapping fannies and killing grannies.” It would have sent a beautiful message if a majority of Jewish New Yorkers rejected Cuomo’s fearmongering against Mamdani, to say nothing of his overall predatory and dishonest character.

I won’t deny that I’m partial to Mamdani because his democratic socialist ideals align with my own. He reminds me of Jewish leftist Norman Mailer, whose 1969 campaign for New York City mayor resulted in his crushing electoral defeat and produced my all-time favorite book, “Managing Mailer.” Yet even if I despised Mamdani, however, I simply do not see evidence that he hates Jews…. and that, when combined with Cuomo’s disgusting personality, makes it clear to me who my fellow Jews should have chosen. (Even Sliwa would have been better than Cuomo, given the lack of sexual misconduct and geronticide accusations against Sliwa, although Jews have historically been partial to the Democratic Party.)

This is the bottom line: every supposedly anti-Semitic statement attributed to Mamdani ultimately involves criticism of Israel.

The worst of the bunch are inartful, revealing that Mamdani spends so much time around radicals in the anti-Zionist movement that he has sometimes thoughtlessly adopted (and then stubbornly refused to retract) their inflammatory statements. Hence his refusal to condemn the phrase “Globalize the intifada!” but instead “discouraging” it; as is the case for many, Mamdani used it as a synonym for liberating Palestinians, but acknowledges many others use it to advocate killing Jews. Likewise Mamdani’s willingness to praise the heads of a former US Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, who were ultimately convicted of funneling money to Hamas (their defenders claim the trial was biased against them, and that they were wrongfully convicted).

Even those two valid criticisms, however, involve issues pertaining to Israel. Thus it’s worth noting that all of the other “anti-Semitic” statements made by Mamdani are NOT anti-Semitic by any reasonable definition of the term… and also involve Israel, thereby reinforcing the notion this is anti-Zionism being mischaracterized as anti-Semitism.

It is not anti-Semitic to oppose Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians, which have occurred since the Nakba, an event in 1948 in which roughly 3 million Jewish Holocaust survivors and Zionist settlers displaced approximately 1.5 million Palestinian Arabs to create the State of Israel. Since then, generations of Palestinians have lived as second-class citizens in occupied territories; in the first two years of the post-October 7th war, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed. That war continues, even though all of the Israeli hostages have been released.

Similarly, it is hardly anti-Semitic to criticize Israel’s actions from the Nakba to the post-October 7th war. This is what Mamdani has done by supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement; saying that Israel should not exist as a state which privileges Jewish residents; referring to Israel’s recent actions in Gaza as a “genocide”; criticizing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which perpetrates human rights violations against Palestinians by helping settlers displace them from their homes; supporting ending New York funding for those same Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories; and arguing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a wanted war criminal, should be arrested if he sets foot in New York City (it’s unclear whether Mamdani actually has the power to do this).

One can reasonably agree or disagree with these specific policy proposals. They are nothing, however, if not consistent with Mamdani’s characteristically bold and staunch approach to left-wing ideals, which he also displays on a wide range of economic and social issues (see my coverage in the “Managing Mailer” review above). More importantly, they do not betray any animosity toward Jews, any condoning of violence toward Jews or any willingness to traffic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. All of them are rooted in legitimate observations about Israel’s human rights violations.

It is only anti-Semitic to criticize Jews based on stereotypes, conspiracy theories, denying real Jewish suffering (notably the Holocaust) and other arguments rooted in bigotry. When Jews do bad things that hurt people, however, it is not anti-Semitic to call them out for it.

Importantly, Mamdani HAS stood with Jews against anti-Semitism when it actually does rear its ugly head. His Department of Community Safety would focus on stopping hate crimes, which Mamdani explicitly says would include discrimination against Jews. He has said he would appoint a senior adviser to tackle anti-Semitism in New York, calls for more Holocaust education in New York City schools (he has been criticized for being unable to sign a State Assembly resolution while he was on the campaign trail) and has repeatedly denounced anti-Semitic violence, from the assassination of Israelis in Washington, DC to attacks on pro-Israel protesters in Colorado.

By contrast, we live at a time when President Trump has appointed literal white supremacists to key positions of federal power, many of whom are explicitly anti-Semitic (including Elon Musk’s, the world’s richest man, who funneled money to Trump’s 2024 election campaign and gave a “Sieg Heil!” salute at his inauguration). As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, one of the two instances of truly vicious anti-Semitism that I’ve directly experienced was at the hands of Trump supporters. (I’ve never been harassed by anti-Zionists.) Trump regularly appeals to his voters with coded references to anti-Semitism, such as denouncing American Jews for not being sufficiently “loyal” to Israel or regularly singling out Jewish anti-Trump donors like Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and Tom Steyer.

Anyone who supports Trump has no business criticizing Mamdani for anti-Semitism. To quote a Jew most of them claim to respect, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Even if one acknowledges Trump’s anti-Semitism (as I suspect Messing, who opposes Trump, already does), that doesn’t mean it’s okay to say the same of Mamdani. Unlike Trump, Mamdani has never said anything explicitly anti-Jewish. He has said a lot that is explicitly anti-Israel, but (as must be repeated) one can criticize a government comprised of Jews without arguing that all Jews — those outside of Israel and those who live in Israel under that government — are guilty by association.

This is the point that Messing, denouncing Mamdani as a “jihadist,” seems to refuse to accept.

Trump, incidentally, implies that all Jews are guilty by association for Israel’s atrocities, since he regularly chastises American Jews for not voting for him as a monolith due to his pro-Israel policies. He even recently said we’d be “stupid” to back Mamdani because of Mamdani’s criticisms of Israel.

Mamdani has never hinted at anything half as anti-Semitic as Trump’s comments like the ones above. He is just upset by the actions of Israel’s government — and I, a Jew like the 33% of New York City voters who backed Mamdani regardless of Trump’s opinions, am upset by them as well.

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Back Seat Socialism

Back Seat Socialism is a column by Matthew Rozsa, who has been a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently, he is writing a book for Beacon Press, “Neurosocialism,” which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.